Forest Gardening represents the most sustainable form of food production through utilizing perennial crops on multiple layers. Not only does this allow us to stack crops vertically on any given site, by applying forest ecology principles we can also achieve the resilience, abundance and diversity of natural forest systems. Annual agriculture is today an incredibly unsustainable pursuit; industrial, fossil fuel and capital intensive monocultures than use up to 10 times the calories produced in their creation. Ironic as nature is powered on sunlight.  We study forest ecology alongside soil development and all other aspects of related topics to allow us to design in complex plant matrixes that will function well beyond our own lifetimes. This exciting and emerging study will yield rich insights into the past as well as future forms of localized, perennial, decentralized human scale production.

What can I expect from the course?
This course is a mixture of theory, design and hands on practical’s. The site is being developed as an extensive forest garden and dedicated perennial forest garden nursery for Scandinavia. We will have plenty of opportunity to go through all aspects of planning, developing and maintaining a forest garden. Fast paced and intensive yet dynamic and sense engaging, this course will leave participants confident inspecies choice, guild selection, patch design, propagation and maintenance of their site, as well as all manner of resources for further study.

Topics covered will include;
• Composts, Compost Teas 
• Biofertilisers 
• Soil Development 
• Ground Preparation
• Mulch Systems 
• Design process 
• Species Selection
• Agroforestry 
• Timber Processing 
• Planting Database 
• Seed/ Plant Sources 
• Windbreak Design 
• Fencing 
• Integrating Animals 
• Fungi & Mushrooms 
• Innoculants 
• Siting 
• Nursery Stock 
• Propagation & Grafting

27 April 2013 - 1 May 2013 Eur320.00 All Inc